Plain English

"The written word remains long after the writer.
The writer is resting under the earth, but his words endure."

Good books are so cheap nowadays that they are within the reach of every one of us. Let us not be content to live in the narrow world of work and worry. Let us forget the struggle occasionally in the reading of books, and let us prepare ourselves, by reading and studying, for the battle for the emancipation of the workers of the world.

    Yours for Education,
    THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.

KINDS OF SENTENCES

450.A simple sentence is a sentence which makes a single assertion, question or command.

The simple sentence contains only words and phrases.

451.A complex sentence is one which contains a principal statement and one or more modifying statements.

The statements made in addition to the principal statement are made in dependent clauses. The complex sentence has only one main clause and one or more dependent clauses.

452.A compound sentence is one which contains two or more independent clauses.

These compound sentences may contain any number of dependent clauses but they must always have at least two independent or principal clauses. These principal clauses are always connected by co-ordinate conjunctions, for the principal clauses in a compound sentence are always of equal rank or order.

Exercise 1

Review the lesson on co-ordinate conjunctions and notice which conjunctions are used to unite principal clauses into single sentences. Use these co-ordinate conjunctions to unite the following pairs of simple sentences into compound sentences. For example:

The sun rises and the day dawns.

The men work but the boys play.

Take the above sentences and use subordinate instead of co-ordinate conjunctions, and make complex sentences instead of compound out of each pair of simple sentences. For example:

When the sun rises, the day dawns.

The men work while the boys play.

KINDS OF COMPOUND SENTENCES

453.Compound sentences may be made up of two simple sentences.

Rewrite the following compound sentences, making of each sentence two simple sentences:

The birds are singing and spring is here.

He believes in war but his brother is against it.

We must arouse ourselves or we shall be involved.

He will not study nor will he allow any one else to study.

454.A compound sentence may be made up of a simple sentence and a complex sentence, joined by a co-ordinate conjunction. For example:

John goes to school, but Mary stays at home in order that she may help her mother.

This compound sentence is made up of the simple sentence, John goes to school, and the complex sentence, Mary stays at home in orderthat she may help her mother.

455.Both parts of the compound sentence may be complex; that is, both principal clauses in a compound sentence may contain dependent clauses. For example:

John goes to school where his brother goes, but Mary stays at home in order that she may help her mother.

This compound sentence is made up of two complex sentences. The sentence, John goes to school where his brother goes, is complex because it contains the dependent clause, where his brother goes; the sentence, Mary stays at home in order that she may help her mother, is complex because it contains the dependent clause, in order that she may help her mother.

Exercise 2

Read carefully the following sentences, determine which are simple sentences, which are complex and which are compound.

1. When the state is corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.

2. To teach the alphabet is to inaugurate revolution.

3. Freedom degenerates unless it has to struggle in its own defense.

4. The destroyers have always been honored.

5. Liberty of thought is a mockery if liberty of speech is denied.

6. Where slavery is, there liberty cannot be; and where liberty is, there slavery cannot be.

7. All our greatness was born of liberty and we cannot strangle the mother without destroying her children.

8. In the twentieth century, war will be dead, but man will live.

9. The abuse of free speech dies in a day, but the denial entombs the hope of the race.

SENTENCE ANALYSIS

456. There is no more important part of the study of English than the analysis of sentences. The very best result that can come to one from the study of grammar is the logical habit of mind. The effort to analyze a difficult passage gives us a fuller appreciation of its meaning. This cultivates in us accuracy, both of thought and of expression. So, spend as much time as you can on the analysis of sentences.

The subject and the predicate are the very body of the sentence, upon which all the rest of the sentence is hung. The other parts of the sentence are but the drapery and the garments which clothe the body of the sentence. Hence, the most important thing in sentence analysis is to be able to discover the subject and predicate.

In the expression of a thought, there are always two important essentials, that about which something is said,—which constitutes the subject,—and that which is said about the subject, which constitutes the predicate.

There may be a number of modifying words, phrases or subordinate clauses, but there is always a main clause which contains a simple subject and a simple predicate. Find these first, and you can then fit the modifying words and phrases and clauses into their proper places.

457. Let us take for study and analysis the following paragraph from Jack London:

Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting has not diminished since the day of the cave-man. It has increased a thousand-fold. Wonderful artifices and marvelous inventions have been made. Why then do millions of modern men live more miserably than the cave-man lived?

Let us take the first sentence out of this paragraph and analyze it. Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting has not diminished since the day of the cave-man. What is the main word in this sentence—the word about which the entire statement is made? Clearly it is the word efficiency. Efficiency is the noun which is the subject of the sentence.